That was all he learned. He told me how he went back to England, to his home near Guildford, to tell his mother all the news of Roddy that he thought it was good for her to know. He digressed a little here, and talked for what seemed a long time about a bit of land behind their house that they wanted to buy in order to prevent their view of the Downs from being built up. And then he went rambling on, and told me how he took the car one Sunday morning and went off by himself over the Hog’s Back towards the south, desperately worried about Roddy. It was a perfectly corking spring day, he said, one of those fresh sunny days with a pale blue sky when the country looks simply wonderful. He said he went on without bothering much about where he was going to till he found himself in Winchester, dropped into the Cathedral and out again, and had a very good lunch at one of the hotels. Then he went on and struck up over the Downs to the east, and so on till he got to Petersfield, where he had tea, and so home over Hindhead to Guildford in time for dinner. And so, he told me, after dinner, when his father and mother were playing piquet, it was easy for him to sit down and write to Roddy to tell him that he’d got to leave England alone for the future.
He said that after that drive it was easy, but he must have known at the time that it would mean—well, trouble of some sort. He said that at the time he didn’t care, and I think that was true. But his letter was a threat. However courteously he may have put it, and I have no doubt that he was very tactful, it could hardly be interpreted as anything but a threat to lay information that would serve to locate a coastguard at Marazan. And—one did not threaten Mattani.
He never got an answer to that letter, but within three weeks he was in prison on a charge of embezzlement. He was very reticent about that; I think he thought that I disbelieved him, for he didn’t even say that it was a put-up job. I went into that in some detail later, but I found out very little. He had been in the habit from time to time of borrowing money from his office till it was convenient for him to cash a cheque, an imprudent proceeding that put him well within the reach of the law. The sums involved had seldom exceeded ten pounds and had always been replaced within a few days, till the three thousand was found to be missing. They traced it through his account and produced his cheque drawing it out again. And that was that. It may be that his defence was hampered by some consideration for his mother—I don’t know. They never put their hands on the money. I think myself it was a put-up job. I think he knew it was.
Quite abruptly, he began to tell me about his meeting with Mattani in Leeds. I think that even then he was a little suspicious of me, a little suspicious that if he were to tell me too much I might take matters into my own hands. I never learned how it was that he had heard in prison that Mattani was coming to England, or how it was that he got into touch with him in Leeds. It is certain that there was a far wider organisation concerned in the distribution of the drugs than we ever managed to trace out. Compton had met Mattani in Leeds only two days before, while I had been beating about off the Lizard. I never managed to fill in the account of how he had spent the intervening days, but I know now that the meeting with his stepbrother in Leeds was arranged through the medium of a retired butcher who lived in considerable comfort in Surbiton. We persuaded the butcher to tell us that later.
He met Mattani at dinner in the Station Hotel, Leeds.
I have often tried to picture this man Mattani to myself, tried to imagine what he was like to deal with. The one outstanding feature about him seems to have been his great personal charm of manner.
‘If ever you have anything to do with Roddy,’ said Compton, ‘you’ll find him very pleasant to deal with. Very pleasant … very good company. I’ve tried him pretty far, I suppose, but he’s always been the same. One can depend on Roddy in that way. It almost reconciles one to him.…’
Joan tells me much the same. She met him once or twice as a young man before the war when she was a child, and her childish memories give me a further clue to the man. She describes him as slight and pale, very pleasant but very dominating, so that she was always a little afraid of him. She remembers that he was intensely enthusiastic about Italy, and that he had an ingenious parlour trick of carving a swan out of a piece of cheese for her amusement. That is all that she can remember about him, and it is little enough to go upon. I met him once myself, but not to speak to.
I don’t really know what Compton hoped to gain by meeting Mattani. It seems to me that he must have known the character of the man, have known that he was up against stronger forces than himself. I doubt if he really knew what he hoped to gain himself. I think perhaps he thought that he could induce his stepbrother to clear out of England—I think he may have been as foolish as that. I cannot think that he was so foolish as to threaten Mattani, but the threat was implied and he had sufficient information in his hand at that time to put it into execution. There is very little doubt of that. I think perhaps he may have spoken about their mother.
Mattani, he remarked, was very glad to see him. He was full of concern for his welfare, for his plight as an escaped convict. There must have been a quiet play of implied threats here, I think, for Mattani had only to speak to the waiters to see Compton arrested on the spot. However, he passed over any little incidents of the moment that might have caused unpleasantness between them, and busied himself with proposing plans for Compton’s future.
One can see the way he worked. Compton was an escaped convict, Mattani one of the very few men in the world who could get him out of the country and start him again in life, under a secure protection. He was very genial, it seems, very optimistic. He said that there was a post in Italy that lay within his gift, that really should be filled by an Englishman, that would suit Compton down to the ground. He was to be an Inspector of English in the Italian national schools. Mattani would see that any unpleasantness with the English police was safely laid to rest and Compton should be in Italy within a week, entering upon his new job in the Department of Instruction at a salary of twelve hundred a year sterling. He would live in Rome. For the time being he could camp out in a suite of rooms in one of Mattani’s palazzi; that was, until he married. Italy was a pleasant country to live and work in, said Mattani—far pleasanter than Leeds. It was also a pleasanter country to marry in.
I expect it took Compton a little time to catch the drift of all this. However, it seems that when he realised what his stepbrother was proposing, his answer came bluntly to the point. He said that he didn’t want to go to Italy and he wasn’t going. As for the matter that he had come to Leeds to talk about, the dope smuggling, it would have to stop.
‘You see, I told him straight out, we couldn’t possibly have that sort of thing going on in England,’ he remarked ingenuously.
I gathered that Mattani had laughed, and observed that it would certainly be very unpleasant for one family to have two brothers in gaol at the same time.
I think by this time Compton must have realised that he was no match for his stepbrother in the battle of wits. And there, so far as I can make out, this curious interview came to an end, with nothing accomplished. There were no witnesses of the meeting save the waiters at the hotel; so far as I can make out Mattani told nobody what had occurred. I have to search my memory, as I have searched it so many times, to recall the words and phrases that Compton used that night as he told me this story in his queer, rambling way, digressing every now and then into irrelevant anecdotes, talking away the quiet hours of darkness.
That was all his tale. He had left Leeds firm in the intention to give evidence against his stepbrother and put a stop to this smuggling of drugs. He had come to the Scillies, not greatly caring whether he was detected, resolved to give himself up to the police as soon as the one link in the chain of evidence was established. He wanted to know what it was that happened at Marazan, and that he had been unable to find out. He had fixed upon that as the salient point of the scheme; until it was discovered how the stuff reached England he could not feel that he had anything but a case of suspicion against Ma
ttani. It was important to find out that.
He told me that Joan had offered to go to the Scillies to see the place while he was in Leeds. That was how she had come to be there; her job had been to make such tactful inquiries as she was able, particularly among the lighthouse-keepers on Round Island. I gathered that she had discovered precisely nothing. To me it was pathetic to see the way in which these two had gone about this business, so different from anything that they had had to do before. They were so helpless, so unfitted for the job. I could see clearly that Mattani could make rings round them; I have no doubt that he knew their every movement, that they were closely watched. One can see now that that must have been the case.
I told Compton about the rag and pliers that I had found on the beach, and got them out and showed them to him. He sat for a long time fingering them, turning them over in his hands, evidently trying to link them up with anything that he had seen or heard about the place. I went through into the forecastle and put on the kettle for a hot drink before turning in; it was about half-past one in the morning. When I came back he had left the cabin, and I saw him standing in the cockpit. He was looking out over Marazan.
I went on deck. The vessel was lying very quietly; it was a bright moonlight night, not very cold. I had no riding-light up, and didn’t intend to set one in such an anchorage as this. I moved round the deck for a little, making all square for the night; in the course of my orbit I returned to the cockpit.
‘It’s transhipment of some kind,’ he said quietly. ‘Motor-boats, of course, in one form or another. The oil shows that.’
I wasn’t quite satisfied with this. ‘They run a cargo to-morrow night?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I want to see what happens. I want to be on White Island to-morrow night. That would be the best place, wouldn’t it?’
I thought for a moment. ‘There’s more cover on White Island,’ I said, ‘but it’s probably farther away from the beach you want. They’ll land on the Pendruan beach, where I found the rag.’
‘They may not come at all,’ he remarked. ‘I may have given Roddy cold feet. But it’s worth trying.’
‘I reckon Pendruan would be our best place,’ I said. But in that case we ought to get away to-night, I think. We can’t leave the vessel here—obviously.’
It was a very still night. There was practically no wind; the water lapped continuously, gently against the topsides. The moon left a dappled trail upon the water like an oleograph. I had been listening while we talked, I suppose unconsciously, to the lapping of the water at hand and to the mutter of the sea on the rocks beyond the entrance to Marazan. And now there was something mingled with the mutter.
‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘What’s the row? Listen.…’
I knew what it was before I spoke. After all, it was my business to know that sort of row, and it was getting louder.
Compton turned towards the hatch. ‘That’s it,’ he said, very quietly, as though he were answering some remark of mine. ‘It’s a motor-boat. And something pretty powerful.’
He slipped down into the cabin and turned out the lamp. In a minute he was back at my side. The vessel was now in darkness.
‘I can’t quite spot where she is,’ I whispered. ‘I think she’s over there,’ I pointed up-wind, in the direction of the entrance to Marazan.
He waited for a moment before replying. ‘She’s coming in from the sea,’ he said calmly. He looked at his watch, glowing faintly in the dark. ‘Not quite full tide, as I make it. She can get through Marazan.’
‘That isn’t a marine engine,’ I said. I strained my ears to analyse the rumble. ‘It’s something big. It sounds much more like an aero engine to me. But that’s no aeroplane.’
I saw him smile at me in the moonlight. ‘They have two hundred horse-power in them,’ he said gently. ‘I told you I saw them at Genoa. They use them for running the stuff ashore to America from beyond the twelve-mile limit.’
I stared at him blankly. ‘You mean this is Mattani?’
He straightened himself up and gazed out in the direction of the rumble, much louder now and evidently coming over the still water through Marazan. I heard the note change as they throttled down.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ he said simply. ‘I didn’t think it would come down to violence.’
I hadn’t anything to say to that, but stood watching the Sound and the ridge of rocks between Pendruan and the tall rock under White Island that they call the Crab Pot. Compton sat down in the cockpit and began to fit a clip into a Colt automatic pistol that he had produced from his pocket. I looked at this thing incredulously.
‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’ I inquired.
He looked up at me, quiet and reflective. ‘Roddy was always a bit queer,’ he said at last. ‘Always dashing off and doing things that he’d be sorry for afterwards.’
I saw the launch for the first time then, crossing a moonlit patch of sea about a quarter of a mile away. I couldn’t see very well what she was like; she was black against the moonlit water, and I could only say that she was a very large launch, one of the largest I had ever seen. I lost sight of her in a moment; we watched for her to reappear, but she came creeping along under the shadow of White Island so that we could not distinguish her against the land. Then we heard the engines reverse with a thrashing from her propellers; finally they stopped altogether. She was quite invisible, but I judged that she was lying in the shadow close under the Crab Pot.
There was silence for a little, and then somebody hailed us. The night was so still that though they must have been two hundred yards away, it was hardly necessary for the stranger to raise his voice.
‘Ho—ah, the yacht!’ he cried. At the first hail I knew that he wasn’t English. The cry echoed round and died into the stillness. ‘Ho—ah, the yacht!’
I answered. ‘Launch ahoy. What launch is that?’
There was a pause. I fancied that I could hear them consulting one another in low tones; in my mind’s eye I could see them. Then the same man hailed again.
‘Ho—ah, the yacht! It is for Meester Compton. It is to Meester Compton that I have a message from his brother. It is allowed that I come alongside?’
‘No, it ruddy well isn’t,’ I cried. ‘Keep off.’
Compton touched me on the arm. ‘They’ll come if they want to,’ he said. ‘We can only keep them off by taking pot-shots at them, I’m afraid. I know these lads.’
There was another hail from the launch. ‘It is necessary that we come alongside.’
I turned to Compton. ‘Shall I say you’re in St. Mary’s?’
‘They’d come alongside just the same, to see.’ He stood up in the cockpit and hailed. ‘Hullo. This is Compton speaking. Keep away, and shout out your message.’
He drew the pistol from his pocket and laid it on the hatch at the head of the companion. There was another little silence, and then:
‘It is more convenient that we come alongside.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I cried. ‘Keep off.’
Our visitor seemed to resign himself to the inevitable.
‘Very well. Meester Compton, I have a message to give to you from your brother. I am to say to you, to come to Italy, to Napoli. As he has told to you. I am to say to you to come in the manner of his guest, and to remind you that he will offer you the post of which he spoke to you. I am to beg of you to come.’
His voice died away over the stillness of the Sound. Compton roused himself and turned to me. ‘Pressing, isn’t he?’ he said. He called across the water:
‘What happens if I won’t go with you?’
‘Meester Compton, I am to beg of you to come.’
‘I dare say. I’m not coming.’
There was a long pause then. I could imagine them crouched together in the darkness in the stern of the launch behind the engine, talking quickly together in low tones, perhaps making their preparations for what was now inevitable. Compton was staring out into the darkness beneath the Crab Pot; I stret
ched out my hand quietly and took his pistol from the hatch.
They hailed again. ‘Meester Compton, I must beg of you to be wise. I have orders that you should come with me.’
‘Now we’re getting down to it,’ said Compton quietly. He raised his voice:
‘I’m not coming. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Meester Compton. It will be better for all if you will come by your own will.’
Suddenly they started up their engine. She fired with a roar, and steadied into a low continuous rumble.
‘See here,’ I cried. The instant I spoke they stopped the engine again, I suppose to hear more distinctly. ‘I don’t know who you are in the launch. But you must keep away from here. You can go on down White Sound, or you can go back the way you came. If you come any closer to this vessel I shall open fire on you.’
There was a long silence, but when the reply came it was brief and to the point. I saw the flash from the darkness low down upon the water, and at the same moment the bullet whipped over our heads and splashed into the folds of the main. What struck me afterwards when we were huddled down on the floor of the cockpit and peering over the coaming was that the report had been so slight. It struck me that they must be using a silencer on the rifle. I remember telling Compton that I’d like to get hold of that rifle and have a look at it.
I cocked the automatic. ‘How many rounds have we got for this thing?’ I asked.